Every country is at risk. Every country must prepare." In fact, it's the truth that 23 million Taiwanese are still excluded by the global health village, due to unjustifiable political reasons.

The WHO is at the centre of global health protection, and its constitution enshrines the principle that enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being. Under this principle, the 23 million Taiwanese and 400,000 foreign nationals (including 100,000 Thai workers) residing on the island should have the same rights as all other human beings to normal and regular access to the WHO.

Although Taiwan is an island, it is near populous countries. The large number of people travelling to, from and through these countries increases Taiwan's relative importance, in terms of global health policy. The number of people visiting Southeast Asia from Taiwan in 2004, for example, exceeded 1.43 million, and 570,000 people visited Taiwan from this area. Moreover, increasing globalisation brings more human and cargo traffic and consequently more threats to health. The two-way trade in poultry and other animal products further intensifies the risk that diseases will spread from animals to humans. Since Taiwan is currently a transit stopoff for around 1.25 million migratory birds of 351 species, the threat of avian flu casts a long shadow over the country.

The reality is we are living in a global health village. Ignoring the health and well-being of one segment of the world's population in one corner of the globe can quickly create health disasters for other populations in other corners. The most obvious measure for filling the loophole created in the global health network is to include Taiwan in the WHO. Therefore, it's time to support Taiwan's participation in the World Health Assembly as an observer and its meaningful participation in the WHO.

Frank JK Chen

Director, Information Division

Taipei Economic and Cultural Office

Bangkok

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Hot air from politicians is a plentiful alternative energy

Re: "Farmers in Northeast bring back the buffalo", News, May 14.

So now the price of oil is so expensive that Thailand's farmers are reverting to using buffaloes to plough their fields. And the ubiquitous begging elephants plying their trade up and down Phetchaburi Road have mysteriously disappeared, possibly sent back to their home provinces to replace expensive oil-fuelled equipment. All I can say is good for the poor elephants who have for years suffered the indignity of being forced to perform like circus animals for the benefit of tourists along Bangkok's traffic-snarled, toxic, exhaust-fume-choked roads. Now, hopefully, they can rest their tired limbs in the quiet and calm of a natural environment after a day's work in the forest. In addition, taxi drivers are abandoning their vehicles - if only tuk-tuk drivers would do the same! - and people are converting their cars to run on natural gas or other alternative fuels.

This is a great trend, and I can only hope it continues to the point where Thailand and the rest of the oil-dependent world can tell the oil cartels to shove it where "the sun don't shine". The reality is unfortunately, that as soon as the price of oil retreats to an affordable level, everything will go back to the way it was; the buffaloes will again be out of work, and the elephants will be back on the streets of Bangkok. I for one advocate that the median price of oil be immediately and permanently raised to US$150 [Bt5,700] or more per barrel; that way, nobody will be able to afford it, and the world will have to find alternative energy sources.

George W Bush, who before becoming US president spent most of his time trying to find and sell oil, recently told his countrymen they must free themselves from their "addiction" to oil - if that isn't the height of hypocrisy, I don't know what is - inadvertently discovering an inexhaustible alternative energy source; ie, all that natural gas emanating from his and the world's oil barons' mouths. Keep it up and your mouth wide open, George; the world needs you.

James White

Bangkok

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Why are police immune from obeying traffic laws?

Re: "Eager to learn", News photo, May 17.

Congratulations on your photograph showing a policeman and his wife accompanying their two young sons to Phya Thai School for the first day of the academic year. The picture shows the policeman driving an overloaded motorcycle carrying four people and two pieces of luggage. Only the policeman is wearing a helmet, while his wife and sons ride bareheaded. The smallest boy, a toddler, is riding in the "ejector seat", straddling the handlebars in front of his father. The photograph is a perfect illustration of the attitude of Bangkok's finest to traffic laws and road safety, even to the extent of utter indifference to the safety of their own family members.

George Morgan

Bangkok

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Britain has actually come up in the world since WWII

Re: "Britain is now a reason for concern, not fond nostalgia", Letters, May 14.

R Richards' description of Britain as a place "in rapid decline" certainly doesn't match my experience of the country that I grew up in and return to twice a year. Yes, there some are infrastructure defects, but every country has similar problems - just look at Bangkok traffic, public hospitals in the US, China's environmental degradation, etc, etc. Compared with the rest of the world, we're not in a bad position.

I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in a drab nation that had barely recovered from the Second World War. Shops had little variety. Streets were empty on weekends. Pubs closed early. People's lives seldom extended beyond the town where they lived. In comparison, the Britain of today is a joyous, vibrant country whose citizens travel widely and influence the world in art, music and culture - and continue to be the world's fifth-largest economic power. Where Richards sees nothing but Big Brother, I see a country where diversity and freedom are celebrated and which draws people from across the world.

Martin Foreman

Bangkok

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Film ban promises to boost profits from bootleg DVDs

Re: "'Da Vinci Code' falls under the censor's knife", News, May 17.

The news that 10 minutes will be cut from the end of the movie "The Da Vinci Code" will not only make the movie unwatchable, since the whole ending will be meaningless, but also has also encouraged me to consider switching from movie-going, which my partner and I do every week, to pirate-DVD watching. The cost will be less, and we are guaranteed a full and uncut movie-watching experience in Thailand.

When I told my Thai partner, who has read the book and was eagerly waiting for the movie to come out, some very un-Thai like words were directed to those in government responsible for this decision. When I told her that the cuts were being made after pressure from the Thai Christian community, she just looked disgusted and said, "I thought Thailand was a Buddhist country."

Like her, I wonder why a minority is allowed to decide what the majority of a country is allowed to do and watch?

Christian Lloyd

Bangkok

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Groups favouring censorship of film are not well known

Re: "'Da Vinci' film ban sought", News, May 16.

This article says it is "four major local Christian groups" that are raising all this ruckus over the film version of "The Da Vinci Code".

However, I am a farang, born and raised in the US, and among the four groups named, I've personally only ever heard of the Seventh-day Adventists, and of them nothing favourable. I've never in my life heard of these other three supposedly "major" groups.

A quick survey among my farang friends and colleagues revealed that not a single one of them had ever heard of these groups or churches or whatever they are.

Who said they were major? They represent a million Christians in Thailand, do they? Who says they do? Besides them, I mean? Are there any figures to back up that statement? The number of a million Christians under just these groups' umbrella, out of 65 million people total in this overwhelmingly Buddhist country, seems rather high.

Or could it be rather that the Thai government has let itself be browbeaten by some fringe elements of a foreign religion into cutting a movie? Could it possibly be that, do you think? This sounds to me like religious colonialism.

Punter

Bangkok

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Hypocritical to criticise those cartoons but not this movie

Compare the hype surrounding "The Da Vinci Code" with the pious hand-wringing about how important it was not to offend religious sensibilities that we heard all over the West, from government leaders and certain NGOs, at the height of the Cartoon Rage. And why aren't we hearing that hand-wringing now from these same people and organisations?

Not because of some subtle difference involved, but because the target this time is Christianity, and because the hand-wringers were and are smarmy hypocrites who were speaking out of fear, not conviction - and they fear that other religion's members in a way they don't fear Christians.

Sue P

Chai Nat

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